


faithless

by thefudge



Series: her name is splendor [2]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Lust, Religious Guilt, teenage love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 04:32:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10801773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: Post 1x03. You can't part if the air between you is always an arrival.





	faithless

**Author's Note:**

> I am so unsure about this one, given recent show developments (I mean I still ship them, but I hope I'm not offending anyone by still writing about them). I will admit I'm not a regular viewer so I might get a lot of details wrong, not just about the plot but the religious aspects as well. I tried to be as mindful of that as possible. Also, lots of this chapter is AU. And oh yeah, I'm probably gonna keep this series going. Please don't judge too harshly, they're my bbies.

 

ii.

She must chase away the birds, must pull out their talons from her skin, but the trouble is the claws run deep and it is like removing a part of herself.

but  _he is not hers_. 

 

 

Faith demands sacrifice, no one knows it better than her. It is self-denial that gives strength and pleases Allah. She unfriends him so quickly, she does not see the screen, does not see her fingers clicking on the mouse.  Everything is fast-forwarded to a moment where she can breathe.

 _Good_. You're not foolish. You're not weak. You've got a steady head on your shoulders. Whatever tempestuous storms may come, you will stand tall and proud, like a lighthouse. At least, this is what she tells herself, over and _over_. 

It's honest pragmatism. She could never love someone faithless. 

 

 

He's lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and the phone has fallen between arm and body, lodged near his ribs, where the heartbeat echoes into the metal casing. 

He's sent her a tentative text, asking if she's all right. Innocent as can be. But he knows - _knew_ \- before sending it that she won't answer. He's done something to alienate her. He has scared her away with his enthusiasm. Is she embarrassed about the vodka? Those silly girls caused her trouble. She must have been so angry. He likes her angry. He imagines she tastes like fjords. It's strange. If anything, she would be _warm_. But no, in this moment, he pictures tasting the ice that floats everlasting between frozen valleys. 

He types with sleepless fingers. _Did I upset you?_   But then he erases the question quickly, afraid of what another silence might confirm. 

 

 

In the bathtub, the water reaches to her nostrils and she sinks further down, until the bottom falls through, and she's floating in an ocean of silence. She's always liked it underwater, underneath. 

Strong arms circle her waist and a hungry mouth kisses the hollow of her shoulder where there is a small constellation of moles, unseen, untasted by anyone before. His tongue darts out, like a pilgrim opening for grace.

Sana tilts her head back - and then she screams, because he has sunk his teeth in. The water leaks into her lungs, makes her throat burn.

She rises from the bathtub on shaking legs.

 

 

"Is your sister okay?"

Elias raises a questioning eyebrow. "What?"

Yousef coughs, turns back to the laptop, takes a cursory glance, shrugs. Movement upon movement to signify leisure. He doesn't care one way or another. "She seemed tired, is all." 

"When did she seem tired?" 

"Last time I came over."

"She just doesn't like people in the house, she's a hermit," Elias jokes, turning back to his phone. 

"Right, yeah. It's just she - uh - she unfriended a bunch of people on facebook and I wondered if she was okay." 

It's a long sentence, he's aware that it draws attention. Elias is almost glaring at him now, at pains to understand him. "That's her business, isn't it? And anyway, Sis doesn't care about facebook _friendships_ much." 

"Oh."

 _Oh_. It shouldn't pinch him quite so sharply. It's really immature to fixate on one girl, just because she happened to...not like him back. In fact, most websites would call him a creep. He needs to accept her silence. He needs to -

"Hey, you should ask her over for my birthday. I mean - I don't know if she'll accept an invitation from me." 

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

 

 

She can't say no to Yousef's birthday, she knows this. It would draw suspicion and even be a touch callous. She nods absently to Elias, "sure, I'll come if Mom lets me."

Her mother always lets her, she knows her Sana never strays. 

 

 

 

The best way to get over a boy, she's read from online sources, is to match him with someone else. Get him off the market. He is a padded lock to her anyway, but she can't bear to throw away the key.

So she signals to Noora in a subtle, underhanded way, that Yousef would enjoy it if she wished him happy birthday in person. 

Noora is stumped. Her mouth seems to chew on the words. "Are - are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Sana snaps, all subtlety gone. 

 

 

Once you've secured a match for the boy you never got to love, you ought to make yourself scarce. The party is subdued, comfortable, like a blanket. People are sitting on the floor, chatting, drinking soda, watching youtube videos, so it's not a big deal when she retires to the bathroom and doesn't come out. She's thrown her gift in the pile at the door. A scarf, plain, unvarnished, impersonal. 

She sits on the toilet seat and clenches her stomach, wondering if all the boys in her future - few and far between as they might be - will be unblessed. Her expression is mournful, but she does not betray sadness, nor the young kind of _angst._ She won't submit to that dull ache that teenagers feel because they lack life experience. She is smooth as a stone, firm as the earth, unshakable to her core, and if she were truly honest with herself, it was not Yousef's lack of faith that shocked her, it was his _admittance_ of it, knowing full well how devoted she is. She almost wishes - in a moment of madness - that he would've lied for her sake. 

She doesn't realize when she's falling asleep. One moment, she's contemplating heresy, the next her eyelids fall shut.

 

 

It must be fate, he reasons, that he is the one to come upon her before anyone else.

He does not believe in gods, but there must have been an undercurrent guiding him here, to this moment. 

He wondered where she hid herself. Sana has a talent for subterfuge. He remembers, oddly, reading _Alice in Wonderland_ as a young child and thinking that the best trick was not discovering upside down worlds, but the act of disappearing in itself. The fact that little Alice could abscond with a rabbit and fall through a hole and be _gone_. There was something clean about it, something sweet.

 He crouches down quietly, afraid to wake her.

Her head is leaning against the sink. The curve of her cheek is pressed against cold enamel. She doesn't look peaceful. There's a small crease between her eyes. But her shuttered eyelids are traversed by little dances like tremors. Is she dreaming? What are her dreams formed of? He assumes they are nothing he could compete with.

He raises his hand and leaves it suspended between her and him. He is so close, he could caress her skin, maybe smooth the wrinkle on her brow. 

Sana shifts suddenly, to get more comfortable, and her cheek is about to slide off the sink. He can see it in slow motion. She will tip over and hurt herself.

And he can't help it.

He reaches forward and steadies her shoulder, fingers digging into soft flesh and into her hijab. 

Sana startles awake.

Their eyes meet in a moment of terror.

"I wasn't -" he says, already accusing himself. 

She blinks quick as a bird, her expression betrayed. She pulls away from him with a silent scream buried in her throat.

Yousef is a fool, and he catches her elbow in a pathetic appeal. "Sana, wait -"

 

 

(The heart emoji, the stupid heart emoji. Did anyone ever invent something so cruel, so flimsy? He just _had_ to add it to the friendly chat. How can you throw it into the ether and then turn around and confess that you believe in nothing? You believed in the heart. You believed in the fucking heart emoji.)

 

 

 

She texts him later that night, a frenzy of taps and clinks. She isn't drunk, but she feels this must be the sensation. 

_Did u want to see what was underneath or what?_

It's really awfully reckless and probably wrong. She should censor herself. She should stop here.

 _I would never_ , he replies almost instantly. 

 _You don't believe in Allah so it doesn't matter, right?_ Someone should take her phone away.

 _I would never do that_ , he repeats, helplessly. _Sana, I'm sorry._

_What for?_

_For...everything_ , he writes back, feeling robbed. Everything sounds like much more than they have now.

 

 

He is wearing the scarf she gave him. She knows, because she sees it draped casually on the coat rack. She steels herself. He's come to see her brother. As if he doesn't care that it might bother her. She's filled with sudden rage at this boy who refuses to vacate her thoughts. She hears laughter, multiple voices.  The whole squad is here. She relaxes a little. 

She takes a detour into the kitchen to grab a quick drink when she sees the cutting board. A handful of parsley is sitting on the side, ready to be chopped. Sana's heart beats a mile a minute. What is this doing here? 

The knife is lying poised across the board, its gleam ferocious, inviting.

Sana clutches the handle like it's made of glass. She sees her reflection, blurred. She wants to put it down, but instead she finds herself swinging it down, thwacking it against the board, mutilating the parsley.

"Oh - heya, San. You should leave that alone," Elias greets her, walking to the fridge to take out a casserole.

"Why?" she asks, arching her brow, not letting go of the knife.

Elias chuckles. "Because you'll cut a finger. And also, Yousef is making us this sauce for the pasta. He needs the parsley."  

Sana shrugs. "What's wrong with my chopping?"

" - nothing, it's great."

The voice doesn't belong to her brother. It arrives from behind, a figure standing hesitantly in the door frame. 

Sana whips around, determined to confront the danger head on.

Yousef is smiling lazily - a deceptive, easy-going smile - for her brother's benefit. 

Sana swallows thickly. "You don't have to lie."

"Does this look like the face of a liar?" he teases, staring at a point above her head.

Elias has already lost interest and is walking out of the kitchen. 

Sana turns back to the chopping board, as if, with her brother gone, she too must hide her face. 

But she doesn't release the knife, she doesn't walk away. They've done this before. 

Yousef takes measured steps, he counts them in his head. When he's a breath away, he waits for her to jump back and weave past him, like water between fingers. 

But Sana stays, breathless, in one place, blade paused over the murdered parsley.

"I think the problem is your wrist," he begins cautiously.

"My _wrist_? What's wrong with my wrist?"

He likes how combative she is about everything, how ready she is to rise to the occasion. 

"You're putting too much pressure on it when you swing." 

His arms come around her. He encircle her body without touching. He makes sure there is a fragment of air left between their limbs. His hands hover over hers, guiding them in a ghostly fashion. 

"You should do it like this."

His breath falls on her shoulder. 

Sana could lean back, like she did when she was underwater, where it was all right, where it was impossible. But this _is_ possible, and it _is_ real, so she doesn't. Because the fragment of air is precious, because their closeness is _more_ close just by cutting off contact. 

It takes all of him to touch her without touching, and yet, he is overwhelmed by the fragile intimacy, the layer they hold together with their breaths. 

He is faithless, but there is something of the divine in this immaterial together.

"Let me try," she says quietly, sweetly, and Yousef moves away, but it is not abrupt and it is not a parting. You can't part if the air between you is always an arrival. 

 

 

Noora tells her, off-hand, that Yousef unfriended her on facebook. 

"What, why?" Sana asks before she can stop herself.

"I don't think it was personal or anything. He told me he's trying to restrict his group because their youtube channel has been getting attacks."

"Oh. Still seems rude. It's not like you're friends with skinheads."

Noora laughs. "I don't know if they're called that anymore."

Sana gives a small smile. It's good to take things lightly for a change. These things don't have to mean anything. 

 

 

 

He texts her late in the evening, just after she's finished her prayers.

_Friends?_

Sana clenches her fingers. She's learned her lesson from last time's deluge. She won't start spewing nonsense. She keeps it inside her head. _You didn't have to wear the scarf, you didn't have to help me chop, you didn't have to unfriend Noora, ~~you just have to say you're Muslim~~ , I'm not some damsel, this isn't like, Disney, or something....and if you are a fan of Disney, it might be worse than not having faith, to be honest._

She snorts to herself. Yes, she's still in danger. But he won't touch her. And she won't touch him. And as long as they keep to that, there's nothing wrong with...them. 

 _Friends_ , she types back, and she feels the birds descending, the talons sinking deep. But she thinks she's got strong armor.

 

 


End file.
